Peter, this is why colleges are nigh worthless today. They teach failed policies and are pretty much just places for big parties and orgies.

Either way stealing money from successful people and giving it to poor people is not a stimulus to the economy as has been proven by Obama’s failed policies of the last several years. And even if it did work then let’s cut off the amount we give at the exact point where the money runs out instead of borrowing more money to pay people that we can’t afford to pay.

Peter, this is why colleges are nigh worthless today. They teach failed policies and are pretty much just places for big parties and orgies.

Either way stealing money from successful people and giving it to poor people is not a stimulus to the economy as has been proven by Obama’s failed policies of the last several years. And even if it did work then let’s cut off the amount we give at the exact point where the money runs out instead of borrowing more money to pay people that we can’t afford to pay.

Melee, Peter is not a U.S. citizen and his country, Australia, does not have a President, they have a Prime Minister, nor do they approach their economy in exactly the same way we do (in the U.S.). The colleges are also seldom the source of big orgy parties, nor is the University where my husband has been a tenured professor for 30 years.

I can tell you that the United States has remained a prime country for it’s short span of time precisely BECAUSE it early on established a fairness to financial distribution to ensure more level attitude between ‘classes’ or an attempt to eliminate wide discrepancies between them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System

Federal Reserve Notes are legal tender, with the words “this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private” printed on each note. (See generally 31 U.S.C. § 5103.) They have replaced United States Notes, which were once issued by the Treasury Department. Federal Reserve Notes are backed by the assets of the Federal Reserve Banks, which serve as collateral under Federal Reserve Act Section 16. These assets are generally Treasury securities which have been purchased by the Federal Reserve through its Federal Open Market Committee in a process called debt monetizing. (See Monetization.) This monetized debt can increase the money supply, either with the issuance of new Federal Reserve Notes or with the creation of debt money (deposits). This increase in the monetary base leads to larger increase in the money supply through the fractional-reserve banking as deposits are lent and re-deposited where they form the basis of further loans.

‘Stealing’ money from the rich to give to the poor is an attitude long over used by some. I worked for several law firms in Washington D.C. for about 20 years that catered to the ‘elite’, the very wealthy. Interestingly, in my position I paid almost 30% of my income to the government in the form of taxes etc., while my attorneys AND our clients paid only 4% to 15% because my employers effectively moved and hid their client’s incomes to banks located in other countries (off shore). That’s why we were paid well. (This movement is called ‘sheltering’ and is similar in a way to how pirates looted and then buried their gold in deep holes in the ground.) So, the funds our clients owned did nothing to stimulate the economy of their own country here, but did quite a bit to stimulate that in other countries. So, in effect, they are part of the ‘theft’ problem that has caused a lot of problems here. I was privy to such movements so I’m a witness. By the way, we had a Republican in the House at the time.

It does seem that you are particularly embittered and perhaps still fairly young as well. So there may be more to your story I think than you have shared.

Melee, I think your attitude can be summed up in a few tiny words: gross egotism and a complete lack of empathy.

In fact, the economic policy Peter brings up is not failed at all. The kind of policies YOU subscribe to HAVE failed and are what brought us the current crisis (and no, Obama did not do this. It started with Reagonomics, which *is* an economic doctrine that is proven to be truely flawed).

And your idea that colleges only throw parties is ridiculous, by the way.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with being fiscally conservative. There is something wrong with cutting costs wildly. Some people seem to have no idea of the distinction between “spending” and “investing”.

It was mentioned on here that people ought to learn a valuable trade, and thus make themselves valuable to society overall. How do you learn a valuable trade? By investing time and money into it. It is extremely difficult to learn a trade without investing into it; if you instead cut back on the time and money that you spend to learn the trade, then you gain nothing. You’ll probably end up worse off than you were to begin with, even.

The same goes for much else that costs money. Want to have a healthy, productive, well-trained workforce in the future? You have to invest in such things as schools and health care today. Most every specific thing that the congressman complained about is that sort of thing. The school lunches? They are an investment in the very basic fabric of what the country will be made of in another decade or two. The RiverStone Health system? Part of the AHEC system that not only serves to train new doctors and medical professionals, not only provides medical services for people who live in areas where health care is hard to get to (I suppose that those people would be considered “undeserving” because their jobs take them to places where other hospitals aren’t near?), but also helps to educate the public so that they can better take care of themselves. The paying to move the elderly from nursing homes to family-owned homes where they get individual care? That’s to save an even greater amount of money (over $1.5 billion was spent by Medicaid in Montana alone on people in nursing homes, and that’s just one of many public funds paying for that). Cutting funding to each of those things might reduce (or at least appear to reduce) spending in the short term. . .but would hurt in the long term.

There are plenty of places in government spending where cutting costs is a terrific idea; I wouldn’t be at all surprised if cutting out a good quarter of the bureaucracy would not only result in a bundle of savings, but would also improve government functionality markedly. However, unthinkingly declaring that a cost should be cut simply because at this particular moment it is a cost is a certain recipe for failure.

It’s also extremely unrealistic to declare that everybody who ends up making use of some social welfare system is somehow undeserving and failed and didn’t try hard enough. Real life is not some family-friendly inspirational movie. You can try your very hardest, do all the right things, make nothing but smart decisions. . .and still not end up with all that you need for basic survival in society. Even for those who do manage to come out on top, all it takes sometimes is one wrong decision, or even one unfortunate happenstance that you have absolutely no control over, and suddenly you find yourself in a hole with no realistic way of getting out of it on your own. On the other hand, somebody who is born into a well-to-do family can simply coast through life and yet still manage to afford all that he needs. How is the former person an undeserving failure, while the latter is an admirable success? Should we all just turn our backs on the person who has suffered bad luck?

Some people apparently say that yes, we should. Those people are entitled to their opinions. As are the much larger majority of people who disagree and say that we have a social responsibility. Seeing as how we live in a society, social responsibility is one of those things that is rather important. While personal responsibility is also important and should certainly be encouraged, it is not some all-answering mantra. Some things that happen in society are beyond the scope of the individual person. That’s the whole point of living in a society, after all: working together as a whole, supporting each other, we are stronger than the sum of our individual parts. Living as part of a society gives us lots of benefits: reliable food, a health care system, life-improving technology, free time for entertainment and diversions, education, and so on. But for those who always cry about personal responsibility: in what way is it responsible to take freely of all of those social benefits, while at the same time ignoring social responsibility? Even if you can simply shrug off the moral aspects of social welfare, most social welfare programs are (as was mentioned) actually an investment in the future. Social responsibility is what helps to ensure that we still have a society fifty years from now.

There are those who would trivialise what these social welfare programs do. They’ll paint a picture of oafish layabouts who take free handouts just to buy luxuries such as X-Boxes, or claim that these programs are pandering to every little need and whim of their clients. Look again at the list of programs that the congressman discusses. Medical care; medicine and surgery is now a trivial need? Meals for children; food is now a luxury? Not having your children die; that’s just a casual whim? Job placement programs; those should be discouraged because they encourage layabouts? No, these are not all simply worthless and shallow trifles. If they are, then surely those who can afford such things would have no problem with giving them up, right? After all, costs must be cut, right? Think of how much money we could put toward paying off the national debt if we all only fed all of our children a couple of packs of ramen noodles a day! Is that a stupid and ridiculous notion? Of course it is. How, then, does changing it from “all of our children” to “a quarter of our children” suddenly make it a good idea?

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“If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts.”

As for the idea that if you get sick, well, that’s the natural order of things so too bad. . .

You might noticed that money is not exactly something commonly seen in the natural order of things. Therefore, there is obviously no reason not to “steal money from successful people” because them having money isn’t natural, right? And because taking away from those who can’t prevent it is common in the natural order of things, right? Or is “the natural course of things” only to be followed so long as it happens to go along with the whims of those in power?

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“If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts.”

I said my piece in my first few posts. The policy of wealth redistribution does not work and spending more than you make does not work. Giving people stuff for free and expecting them to still be incentivized to work .. does not work. These are obvious to people who can see how the world works. We don’t feed bears because then they won’t hunt for themselves and will attack others thinking they should have the food that other people have. It is the same thing for humans, if people don’t earn what they get they begin to not want to earn at all. it baffles me that people don’t see this as clearly as I do. This is why I am more comfortable in a country type setting than a city setting, even though I have never lived in the country. They are people who know what work is, they know about rugged individualism and personal responsibility. They know that if they don’t fix that hole in the fence the livestock will get out and there is no government there to reimburse them if they choose to be lazy. In the city there is no need for any of thee things because of a multitude of lifelines to fall back on. I can’t say it any clearer than the illustration of the restriction on feeding bears. It is animal nature to take the easiest path. if you can’t see that I cannot help you.

As for the idea that if you get sick, well, that’s the natural order of things so too bad. . .

You might noticed that money is not exactly something commonly seen in the natural order of things. Therefore, there is obviously no reason not to “steal money from successful people” because them having money isn’t natural, right? And because taking away from those who can’t prevent it is common in the natural order of things, right? Or is “the natural course of things” only to be followed so long as it happens to go along with the whims of those in power?

I’m not sure where you got the “natural order of things” but I don’t believe a society should be without rules if that is what you are implying. That would be ridiculous. Obviously our government is there with the original intention of supplying physical safety from invading armies and to regulate fair trade. The state militias were there to prevent the federal government from abusing their powers and citizens owning guns was granted to protect from the government in case they turned like England was when we escaped in 1700’s.

Getting sick is the natural order of things. Everyone is appointed to die and not one person will miss that appointment. Just because dying is the natural order of things doesn’t mean stealing and murder are acceptable in society. Straw man arguments are only effective againstt he weak of mind.

It is the same thing for humans, if people don’t earn what they get they begin to not want to earn at all. it baffles me that people don’t see this as clearly as I do. This is why I am more comfortable in a country type setting than a city setting, even though I have never lived in the country. They are people who know what work is, they know about rugged individualism and personal responsibility. They know that if they don’t fix that hole in the fence the livestock will get out and there is no government there to reimburse them if they choose to be lazy. In the city there is no need for any of thee things because of a multitude of lifelines to fall back on. I can’t say it any clearer than the illustration of the restriction on feeding bears. It is animal nature to take the easiest path. if you can’t see that I cannot help you.

Geesh you are naive. The truth is, many of your farmers could not survive without government subsidies.

I said my piece in my first few posts. The policy of wealth redistribution does not work

Where is your evidence for that statement? Some of the strongest and healthiest economies in this world (e.g. several Scandinavian countries and my country, the Netherlands) are built on the principle of wealth redistribution. The evidence does not bear your statement out.

By contrast, a doctrine that has really proven to not work is the conservative Reagonomics mantra of “wealth will trickle down”. A quick look in the statistics will show you that nothing like that happened since Reagan and Thatcher instituted that doctrine: the gap between the wealthy and the poor has only gotten bigger, and the percentage of poor relative to wealthy has only grown.

Those who steal the most in your country are those 1% wealthy. They evade taxes, but freeload upon all those things in your society that are vital (e.g. infrastructure, education, police and military protection of their interests) and payed for by the tax money of people who have much less money to spend but do pay taxes. Your bankers have payed themselves outrageous bonusses basically constituting the money they took from people whom houses they foreclosed, they screwed up big time, have thrown the world into this crisis, got themselves bailed out (and their jobs saved) while millions or ordinary citizens lost their homes, jobs and future without being bailed out. Your CEO’s pay themselves filthy bonusses payed for by laying off the jobs of thousand of their workers, outsourcing their work to India. They have gotten richer and richer with these actions. Now who are the greedy people taking advantage here? If you are looking for greedy and ruthless people stealing from others, look there. There they are.

This is the feudal attitude I was talking about: “because I am wealthy and powerfull I can do and take what I want, even to your detriment, but if you do that, I’ll punish you. I own you and can do with you what I want, and after I am done with squashing everything out of you, you can perish for as far as I am concerned”. And cynically, these people and those brainless dupes who support them are the ones that call others, much less fortunate than them, “freeloaders” and accuse people of ‘taking advantage”. It’s outrageous.

And these people suffer from the same thing as you do: a complete lack of empathy with the less fortunate, and an extremely strong egotism where only the personal benefits count, even if they are disastrous to other people and society as a whole. A strongly self-centered attitude where they regard it a right to take and profit, but don’t want to have others take and profit, others who are much more badly off than they are and truely need help and assistence. “Me me me, and you can perish you poor unfortunate, inferior sod…”

And yes Melee: you take and profit too. Every time you drive down a road constructed with tax money you do. When you receive education you do. When you use water and electricity, which is a vital infrastructure originally built with considerable tax money (many people forget that: Acci quite rightly pointed that out), you do. When you consume food the production of which was heavily subsidized, you do. When you use things or services developed with the help of government funding in science you do (and those are A LOT of things!). Your “own achievements” would not be possible without the support of all those things which are not your own achievement at all, but the result of society redistributing wealth for the greater good. So your “own achievement” mantra only serves to illustrate your own self-centered egotism. And your lack of understanding on who’s contributions society and your life is really founded.